Mad, Mad World(s?)
by electricsymphony
Summary: Garcia Flynn is not a terrorist. He's just a simple man, with simple wishes, simple dreams. All he wants — all he's ever wanted — is her happiness. (Based entirely on post - Episode Two theories and head canons.)


**Notes:** Notes: I hope you all like this (sort of, except yeah, definitely) outlandish proposal of a possible theory. I wrote this all in three hours after the show tonight because I was so desperate not to lose any of my thoughts on this subject, so it's not the best. It's definitely out there, but so is this show, so... :D

Please share with me your crazy theories too, I'd love to hear them.

Enjoy. :)

* * *

At eleven years old, Garcia Flynn had an unrelenting, immovable sense of self. He liked puzzles, chocolate chip ice cream, getting into arguments with older kids, and had an enormous, oversized poster of Franklin D. Roosevelt above his bed.

He wasn't a terrorist.

He was a student, a son, a science enthuiast and a self-proclaimed geek. He kept up on current affairs, read facial expressions like the blind read brail, and his floppy hair was always windswept and unkempt, causing snide remarks from bitchy middle school girls.

He was a fighter, a do-gooder, a champion for his nerdy friends who didn't know how to talk for themselves.

In the very beginning of February, 1983, his parents told him he was going to be a big brother. He was less than enthused.

—

* * *

Millie Bengston was his first date — Millie / _fucking_ / Bengston! — and his father was called to DC for some political horseshit, his mother god knows where fucking someone who wasn't his father, so, naturally, it fell on him to watch his toddler sister.

Instead of hearing, 'Oh god yes, Gar! Right... right there!' like he'd been imagining in his dreams for five nights straight, all he heard that night were different variations of, 'Garci, I think I burnt Dolly with Mommy's candles...' or 'GARCI, why did you knock that over?' or a not so innocent little, 'Oooh, Garci, I caught you drinking Daddy's brown power-juice!'

He fucking hated kids.

—

* * *

His father was a senator for the state of New York, his mother was a drunken yuppie and his sister was a prodigy. Like him. Like his father. On one of his visits back home from college at Stanford, the seven year old haughtily corrected several errors on his history paper. His father laughed — that great, big mirthful chortle of his — and declared his little angel the future first ever female president of the United States. She giggled, snuggled into her Dad's warm, inviting embrace and Garcia's affectionate smirk was successfully hidden by a spoonful of Cheerios.

—

* * *

His father just kept getting reelected. His mother just kept drinking. His sister just kept growing up. He just kept watching. Wash, rinse, repeat. The nineties just weren't that interesting, honestly.

—

* * *

The year 2000 — she was 17, he was 28 — (a nuclear weapons expert at the CIA, thank you very much) — and she showed up at his door, sixty miles away from where his family lived, soaking wet from the rain.

"Garci?" Her voice was shaking, her usual confident disposition markedly disturbed. He couldn't tell if she was crying with all the water on her face, but he doubted it. He'd never seen her cry. "Can I...?"

Wordlessly, he ushered her into his swanky living room — all crisp, white lines and minimilist design — and they proceeded to spend the next two days painting one of the walls red. 'Accent walls build character, Garci. Maybe someone'll be duped into thinking you have an actual personality when they see your house now.'

She didn't tell, and he didn't ask. When he found out, though, he spent a night in jail after beating a drug-addled punk six ways to Sunday.

—

* * *

After 9/11 and the death of the president, their Dad changed. A lot. He didn't laugh anymore, didn't show any affection to his favorite person in the world, and they all felt the ripple effects. She compensated by shifting her focus from history and education to international relations. She thought he'd appreciate that. Too bad he didn't really appreciate anything anymore.

—

* * *

By 2007, he was 35 and people were starting to question why he hadn't started a family. Or committed to anyone. He shrugged, usually answering with a sardonic snort, 'The family I've already got is enough of a commitment.'

—

* * *

Christmas Day, 2008 is when they both found lots of letters and engravements about something called 'Rittenhouse' while snooping, raging drunk, through their parent's attic. They didn't pay it any mind at the time.

—

* * *

Valentine's Day, 2009. She got engaged to a yuppie-fuck named Clint. God, did she really want to please their Dad _that_ much?

—

* * *

2011, he got married to Chelsea. He doesn't remember the exact date anymore. That doesn't bother him nearly as much as it should.

—

* * *

"Garci?" His head turns, watching her approach him, hesitant in a way so blatantly uncharacteristic that it's a little psychically jarring.

"Listen, I know this is a bad time for confessions—today is certainly not about us—but there's something you don't know. A lot of things you don't know." She takes a long, deep breath, and his palms start to get sweaty.

"Garci, please don't hate me. Dad just kind of— _gave up_ , and I owed it to him, _to everyone_ , to finish what he started. Now... well, now, I'm going to need your help. This is a journal of everything I've been working on. Promise me, promise me that whatever happens to me, you'll never lose it. You'll never stop fighting."

" _Fighting_? Fighting for _what_?"

"I didn't marry Clint 'cause Dad would like it, I didn't join NATO 'cause I wanted to, and I sure as hell didn't pursue international relations to avenge Bush's death."

"You're kind of scaring me, L—"

Her impish little smile reminds him of the eighties—the dreary, uncomplicated eighties.

"I love you, Garci," she says, and rests her head against his chest, the grim atmosphere of the cemetery fading slightly at the touch.

There's no hesitation on his part, not this time. "Love you too, Luce."

—

* * *

He spends four years stuck in time-loops decades and centuries in the past, seeing first hand the shitstorm his father had a hand in creating—the mess Lucy thinks can be saved, the mess Lucy has _asked_ him to save. Part of him thinks he created this timeline simply to see her face again—he tells himself that he'll abandon this insane suicide mission when he sees her again. Just once.

But then he _actually_ sees her—they're standing amidst tons of spectators watching the chaos of the Hindenberg crash in 1937, years and years and years before they were born, and dimensions away from a life where they were family, and her voice is a frantic pitch that startles and disgusts him. An overwhelming sting in his chest acknowledges that now, in this moment, Lucy Preston is not Lucy Flynn. She's just... she's _not_. She's different. He's waited four years, committed unfathomable horrors just to hear her voice again, and it doesn't even _sound_ like her.

He's mangled his world so much, he hardly recognizes it. His mother is some kind of academic legend, the Asian Detonation never happened, Lucy's a history professor — well, not all things can change, can they? — and his father... God, he can't even bring himself to think it. Granted, he's changed too. This crazy mission has shaped him into someone harsh, cynical, dangerous. He can hear her mirthful laughter at his thoughts-'Dangerous? You got kicked off the soccer team for not being aggressive enough, ya big softie.'

She looks up at him — so vulnerable, so scared, so... _not his Lucy_... and her words, 'Why are you doing this?' echo all around him. All other noises fade. He knows he can't abandon the mission now—no, he has a new mission. He wants his sister back, not—not this strange, time-warped version.

Looking at Lucy Preston is like looking at a memory — it's not the real thing, but it's close. It's so dangerously close that his next thought almost slips out—

'You asked me to.'

Garcia Flynn is not a bad man, really. He's just a simple man, with simple wishes, simple dreams. All he wants — all he's ever wanted — is her happiness.

Garcia Flynn is not a terrorist. He's just a brother.

* * *

 **Notes:** I'm getting the idea that people are sensing a romantic/sexual vibe between these two. I wanted to propose a different angle.

I really love the inclusion that we know absolutely nothing about Lucy's biological father, because it leaves room for crazy ideas of all sorts... like this. Two episodes in and I think the potential for outlandish theories in this show is endless. I love it.

Thanks for reading. :)


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